Dressing for Work, is it still Relevant?
It wasn’t too long ago that almost everyone dressed formally for office jobs, small armies of white shirted men and women would descend upon the various offices up and down the country, immaculately turned out even though they would never meet a customer or attend meetings with other companies. Times have certainly changed, ‘Casual Fridays’ are not only common place in many offices but Monday to Thursday are now hard to distinguish when considering dress code alone.
Industries also play a part in what is and isn’t acceptable to wear to work. The growth in web based design, graphics and media companies has meant an increase in a less formal working ‘uniform’ with jeans replacing the business suit and meetings made up of twenty something’s as opposed to the older, more traditional management stereotype.
When attending conferences or meetings these days I always check out the topics and agendas so I can determine whether the dress code is more likely to be leaning towards jeans and jumpers as opposed to suits and ties. I made the fatal mistake once of attending a Google conference on Online Marketing in jeans and trainers expecting the event to be full of ‘Generation Y’ designers and marketing bods who would be equally grubbily turned out. To my utter dismay when I entered the hall, there were probably thousands of attendees, all nattily decked out in Saville Row suits and the like. Needless to say I did stand out!
Easy Offices is a web based business so our dress code is extremely relaxed. We’re not ‘client facing’ as the majority of our business is done via our website so in this glorious weather there’s a mixture of shorts, flip flops and sun dresses on display. If we go out to events or meetings then the ‘glad rags’ come out and change is quite extreme to say the least!
So have times really changed or have attitudes just become more relaxed about non-essential business matters? Does your office have ‘Casual Friday’ or is the dress code relaxed all week?